I agree you're not screwing anybody else. That said, people like you should be kicked to the back of the line. Hopefully they'll implement that in the near future.
They're potentially screwing the people who intentionally waited to order to get delivery in a certain time frame for whatever reasons they chose--which could legitimately be waiting for the tax credit or upgrades or vacation or a new house or whatever. But those legitimately did it by waiting to order, instead of jumping into the 'I want it ASAP' queue, and then jumping out, and then jumping in again, etc. And they're essentially screwing everybody, Tesla and other Tesla buyers, by introducing unpredictability and uncertainty into the delivery process. And finally, they'll end up screwing everybody when Tesla has to do things like change or eliminate the hold policy, change deposit terms, etc, to prevent abuse, just like LL Bean had to cancel unlimited returns policy because clowns would return shirts after 15 years when a button fell off. And they all said 'Hey, it was within the terms, so it's ok'; and of course any normal and fair person would understand that was not the intent. And manipulating the hold policy for tax credits or future features isn't the intent of the hold policy, and it's hard for me to describe how little weight the 'Well, it's 'legal' with the terms so it's ok' argument carries with me.
And I AM (or was until I retired a few years ago) a Contracting Officer. Never in a million years would I award a contract that wasn't 'fair and reasonable'; if someone made an apparent error in their proposal in our favor I'd never accept it, I'd send it back questioning whether there was an error and give them a chance to fix it. I didn't have to do that, but my job wasn't to screw people, it was to negotiate a contract that was fair and reasonable to both sides.
Look, everyone understands the 'Me first, whatever I can get away with is ok' argument, it's not difficult or profound. You'll never in a million years change their mind, you'll just make them mad because nobody wants to hear that some people thing they're doing something 'wrong'. And of course they're never going to convince me that abusing the hold policy to get things they didn't pay for instead of legitimate personal reasons is right.
So having said all that, I also think Tesla should send folks coming off hold to the back of the line. But they should also build in some more latitude in their three-day delivery window because sometimes folks are forced into holds simply because they're unavailable for a week--which of course occurs more often than it should because deliveries are less predictable because we have folks jumping in and out of line to game the system. Allow folks to pay some sort of holding fee if they need to extend beyond the three day window; $25/day or whatever. Then if you have to delay until the following week when you get back from vacation or whatever the issue is you can decide if that's worth $150, or go on hold and go to the back of the line. But at least they wouldn't be forced onto hold.
Right now I'm having trouble getting my money lined up for the initial deposit--I'm putting $30K down. And that takes time because I needed to sell stock, then wait for the sale to clear, Then I needed to transfer the money from my brokerage account to a checking account I can use. If thanks to people like our friends here pulling their orders out of line they all of a sudden text me today saying pick up in the next three days or go on hold, I'll be screwed. My EDD is 18 - 24 Jan so I SHOULD be ok, but you can never know because of the people abusing the hold system.
I doubt that will happen because I don't think there are nearly as many people doing it for the upgrades as there were for the tax credit, but you can never know. All it takes is one person at my delivery center with my configuration pulling that stunt with a car in transit or on the lot, and I'm next in line.
